The present invention relates to a decorative necklace or other form of jewelry and, more particularly, to an item of jewelry that does not fully encircle the neck of the wearer but has its ends affixed to the strap of a wearer's garment, such as an undergarment.
There are, of course, various types of necklaces used as decorative attachments to a wearer and which are of a wide variety of shapes and sizes to appeal to the wearer and/or to match the other clothing being worn by the wearer. In particularly, however, if there is at least one common feature of all necklaces, it is the feature that the necklace encircles the neck of the wearer. As such, with such necklaces, the position of the ornamental feature, if there is one, is directly in the front of the wearer and its exact location is somewhat constrained by the clasp location and the length of the necklace itself. In addition, for some wearers, it is rather inconvenient to have to manage the clasp at the rear of the since many clasps are quite small and difficult to manipulate to engage and disengage by the wearer of the necklace.
Thus, it is sometimes necessary for the wearer of a necklace to seek the aid of another person to engage and disengage the clasp and, again, not only is that somewhat inconvenient but there are times that no such addition person is available and the wearer is left alone to struggle with the manipulation of the clasp without the ability to actually view the clasp in attempting to close the clasp to secure the necklace in place about the neck of the wearer.
In addition, with the present necklaces that have their free ends joined together with a clasp, the location of the necklace, and in particular, the ornamental feature, is located at a fairly fixed position at the front of he user's neck that is determined by the overall length of the necklace. Thus, as the necklace encircles the neck of the wearer, the length of the necklace will automatically fix the location of the ornamental feature at a particular point at the front of the neck of the wearer and that location cannot be readily changed with that type of necklace. As such, if the wearer desires the necklace and its ornamental feature to hang lower of higher than its normal predetermined position due to a different neckline of a particular garment, that fixed position cannot be readily be accomplished with the conventional necklace.
Illustrative of some prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,903 of Porteous where there is a dental bib holder that has a means of attaching free ends of a strap to a bib to locate that bib to the front of a patient, however, the purpose of Porteous is entirely different than the preset invention and the bib is not adapted to be affixed to the straps of a garment, such as an undergarment of a person. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,805 of Mason, there is a necklace that encircles the users neck and which passes through a number of loops affixed to the users garment, however, the necklace of the Mason patent still encircles the neck of the use and does not become affixed to the straps of a garment worn by the user.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous if there were another, more convenient means of affixing a necklace to a wearer and which could be fastened in place without the need to manipulate some intricate clasp behind the neck of the user. It would also be advantageous for such necklace to have the ability and versatility to be easily moved with respect to its conventional location on the wearer so that the location of the front of the necklace, and, if present, the ornamental feature of the necklace, can be moved to and relocated at the desire of the user to a particularly advantageous decorative location on the wearer. In addition it would be a further advantage of the necklace to simply present a new look to the wearer as opposed to the convention necklace and achieve a more presentable appearance of the necklace.